Monterey Park shooting: 10 dead, 10 injured at Los Angeles dance club; the suspect is at large

A gunman killed 10 people and wounded at least 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom after celebrating the Lunar New Year, police said, launching a manhunt for a suspect who remained at large early Sunday.

Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the injured were taken to a hospital and were listed in stable to critical condition. He said 10 people died at the scene in Monterey Park.

Meyer said people were “pouring out of the place screaming” when officers arrived at the scene around 10:30 p.m. He said officers then entered the ballroom as firefighters treated the injured.

“The suspect fled the scene and remains at large,” said Meyer, who added that officials do not yet have a description of the suspect.

Meyer said it is too early in the investigation to determine a motive and whether the suspect targeted the victims.

FBI agents and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are on the scene assisting local police, a law enforcement source told CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton.

The authorities it was previously reported that the shooting happened in the 100 block of West Harvey Avenue in Monterey Park. One of the businesses on the block is the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, which was hosting an event called “Starry Night” from 8pm to 11:30pm, according to the website calendar.

This was reported by local resident Wong Wei Los Angeles Times his girlfriend was at the club and she was in the bathroom when the shooting started. When she came out of the bathroom, she saw an armed man and three bodies — two women and one man, who he said was the boss of the club.

The friend then fled to his home around 11 p.m., Wei said, adding that his friends told him the shooter was firing indiscriminately with a long gun. “They don’t know why, that’s why they’re running,” he told the newspaper.

Officials also revealed there was an “incident” in Alhambra, and police were investigating whether there was a connection to the shooting in Monterey Park about two miles away, CBS Los Angeles reported. No one was injured in the second incident, officers said.

“We are aware of the incident that happened in the Alhambra, and we have investigators trying to determine if there is a connection,” Meyer said. “Investigators are working through all the traces in this case. We review all surveillance video and follow up on all leads. We’re not going to leave anything unturned.”

The celebration of the New Year according to the lunar calendar gathered thousands of people. Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people with a large Asian population located about 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

One neighbor said CBS Los Angeles the shots sounded like fireworks, but because of the festivities in the area, he didn’t think much of it at the time.

The Monterey Park festival has been canceled for Sunday, officials said.

Videos posted on social media show people being loaded onto stretchers and put into ambulances. Other photos showed bloodied and bandaged victims being treated by firefighters in a Monterey Park parking lot.

Seung Won Choi, owner of a nearby seafood restaurant, told the Los Angeles Times that three people broke into his restaurant. People, he said, said there was a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle who reloaded after opening fire.

“Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones tonight in our neighboring city of Monterey Park, where a mass shooting just happened,” said Los Angeles City Dispatch Kenneth Mejia. tweet.

It was the fifth mass shooting in the US this month and the deadliest since 21 people were killed at a school in Uwald, Texasaccording to the Associated Press/USA Today database of US mass murders. The latest violence occurred two months after five people were killed in Colorado Springs Nightclub.

According to the Gun Violence Archive website, there were 647 mass shootings in the United States last year, defined as an incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are killed or killed.

The US has more guns than people: one in three adults owns at least one gun and nearly one in two adults lives in a home with a gun.

This is a developing story and will be updated.